Muhlenbergia mexicana |
Muhlenbergia expansa |
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Mexican muhly, muhlenbergie du mexique, muhlenbergie mexicaine, wire-stem muhly, wood satin grass |
cutover muhly, savannah hairgrass |
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Habit | Plants perennial; rhizomatous, not cespitose. | Plants perennial; cespitose, not rhizomatous. |
Culms | 30-90 cm tall, 0.5-2 mm thick, erect, much branched above the base; internodes dull, puberulent or glabrous for most of their length, sometimes strigose immediately below the nodes. |
60-100 (150) cm, erect from the base, not conspicuously branched; internodes mostly glabrous, sometimes puberulent below the nodes. |
Sheaths | smooth or scabridulous, somewhat keeled; ligules 0.4-1 mm, membranous, truncate, lacerate-ciliolate; blades 2-20 cm long, 2-6 mm wide, flat, scabrous or smooth, those of the secondary branches similar in length and width to those of the main branches. |
glabrous or puberulent, rounded basally, becoming fibrous, not flat or spirally coiled, at maturity; ligules 1.8-5(10) mm, membranous, firm, strongly decurrent, obtuse; blades 20-50(80) cm long, 2-4 mm wide, flat or involute, smooth abaxially, scabrous adaxially. |
Panicles | terminal and axillary, 2-21 cm long, 0.3-3 cm wide, dense; primary branches 0.3-5.5 cm, appressed or diverging up to 30° from rachises; pedicels to 2 mm, strigose; axillary panicles exserted on long peduncles. |
15-50(60) cm long, 5-30 cm wide, longer than wide, diffuse; primary branches 2-20 cm, capillary, spreading 30-100° from the rachises, naked basally, lower branches with 5-20 spikelets; pedicels 4-50 mm, longer than the spikelets, capillary, flexible, widely divergent at maturity. |
Spikelets | 1.5-3.8 mm, often purple-tinged. |
3-5 mm, often purplish, sometimes brownish or bronze. |
Glumes | subequal, 1.5-3.7 mm, equaling or slightly shorter than the lemmas, 1-veined, tapering from the bases to the acuminate apices, unawned or awned, awns to 2 mm; lemmas 1.5-3.8 mm, lanceolate, pubescent on the calluses, lower portion of the mid-veins, and margins, hairs shorter than 0.7 mm, apices scabridulous, acuminate, unawned or awned, awns to 10 mm; paleas 1.5-3.8 mm, narrowly lanceolate, apices acuminate; anthers 0.3-0.5 mm, yellow to purplish. |
subequal, 1.5-3.3 mm, shorter than the florets, glabrous; lower glumes 1-veined, unawned; upper glumes usually 1-veined, rarely 3-veined, acute to acuminate, often erose, sometimes mucronate; lemmas 3-5 mm, lanceolate, calluses shortly pubescent, apices acuminate, without setaceous teeth, usually unawned, if, as rarely, awned, awns 1-3 mm, clearly demarcated from the lemma bodies; paleas 2-4.5 mm, lanceolate, acuminate, unawned; anthers 1.5-2 mm, purple. |
Caryopses | 1.1-1.6 mm, fusiform, brown. |
2-2.5 mm, narrowly elliptic, brownish. |
2n | = 40. |
= unknown. |
Muhlenbergia mexicana |
Muhlenbergia expansa |
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Distribution |
AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; DE; IA; ID; IL; IN; KS; KY; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MT; NC; ND; NE; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; WY; HI; BC; MB; NB; NS; ON; QC; SK; YT
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AL; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TX; VA
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Discussion | Muhlenbergia mexicana usually grows in mesic to wet areas such as moist prairies and woodlands, stream banks, roadsides, ditch banks, lake margins, swamps, bogs, and hot springs, at elevations 50-3300 m, and is found in many different plant communities. Despite its name, M. mexicana grows only in Canada and the United States. Plants with awns 3-10 mm long belong to Muhlenbergia mexicana var. filiformis (Torr.) Scribn., and those without an awn or with awns less than 3 mm long to Muhlenbergia mexicana (L.) Trin. var. mexicana. Early in the flowering season, M. mexicana may be confused with plants of M. bushii in which the axillary panicles are poorly developed, but they differ in their dull internodes and the fact that the blades on the secondary branches are usually similar in length and width to those of the main branches. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Muhlenbergia expansa grows in perennially moist to wet soils in pitcher plant bogs, pine savannahs, and flat-woods, usually in sandy soils and at elevations of 0-300 m. Its primary range is the coastal plain of the south-eastern United States. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 25, p. 154. | FNA vol. 25, p. 188. |
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Muhlenbergia | Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Muhlenbergia |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | M. capillaris var. trichopodes | |
Name authority | (L.) Trin. | (Poir.) Trin. |
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